As an artist vintage photos are a most essential raw material to me. I love the mystery of not knowing who these people in the photos are - it means they can be anyone! I don't make up elaborate back stories to the people who end up in my collages, but somehow I still feel I know something intimate about them and base my work around that feeling. These photos are so much more than pretty faces and drool-worthy dresses.

By now my vintage photo collection has grown to a considerable size. Parts of it I have weeded out as photos I'm unlikely to ever use in my work (=put them up for sale at first possible chance - somehow that chance hasn't come in the past couple of years...), parts have been set aside as precious treasures to be used only under some kind of divine inspiration, and the rest is housed in a plastic bin and albums by my desk.

Let's have a closer look!

The contents of the bin I've sorted according to subject or size. Below you can see some of my tiny photos, measuring just 1"x1½".

Sometimes I find small snippets of the real people. The three girls who seem to have had a blast together are finally paired with the names Laura, Stella, and Sophie

The ice skaters above and the swimmer girl below are perhaps in my top 5 of favourite photos. They've been waiting for the right idea for a long time already. I'm not sure if it will ever come. I try not to be too precious about my materials, but I can't always help it.

Also in my collection: a small handful of glass negatives. At times I know exactly what I should make with these, but I end up second guessing myself before I take the plunge. They need to have light come through to be seen well enough, meaning they need to be either hung at a window or have a light source built inside the collage. The latter option intrigues me, but it's no small job to figure it all out... If I had a ton of glass negatives I'd love to build a divider screen out of them. Not that we'd have room for one in our home, but someone else surely would.

Winter is a tiny bit more present than this time last week. November makes me yearn for a proper winter. Winter makes me yearn for spring. Spring makes me yearn for any allergy-free season. But no season makes me yearn for November. Perhaps that's why this month is perfect for either planning ahead or looking back. Today I'm glad to look as far back as these photos go.